Keep Bleeding
by KissByTheFire
Summary: Maybe next time, he'll love her. In the meantime, she could use a cigarette. Angsty Helga/Arnold future!fic.


**A/N:** This fic was inspired by a comment I saw on a HA! fanfiction about how awesome it would be for Arnold to be cheating on his spouse/girlfriend with Helga as adults. I took it a bit of a step further, as you can see. Also inspired by the song "Bleeding Love" by Leona Lewis.

* * *

His shadow slides through each sliver of sun, like he's fading, like he's too far away. This is new, she thinks, sliding along the banister with clammy palms, and ignores how it isn't new at all.

"No more," he says, hands fumbling with each mismatched button, voice so quiet and careful and angry and - beautiful, he's so beautiful. She wants to touch him, but doesn't. She wants to cry, but how would that look? Instead, she laughs, there in the spiraling echoes of light.

"You can't be serious," she says, carelessly fingering her cigarette, blowing soft shadows of smoke above his head. He grimaces, coughs. He hates it, she knows, and it makes her feel a little better, stronger. "You love me."

_Not her,_ she almost adds, but it's too hard to say, it barely draws a path through her dizzy thoughts (him, laughing in her auburn hair, him, cradling her porcelain neck, him, wrapped up, torn down, consumed and captured by every look).

"Say it," she demands; twirling, desperate laughter dripping down the steps as she carries herself closer to him. She needs to be closer. "Say that you love me."

He looks to her, strained, hopeless, threads of sun tracing haphazard patterns along his face. She looks back without hesitation, gracefully arched, little more than a carving in the wall. Maybe she feels guilty. Maybe she's lost her heart, dropped it somewhere along the way.

He sighs, light coloring his flaxen hair the most brilliant color, and oh, how she needs to touch him, she's never wanted anything more, never, never. Two more quick steps, and she lingers right above him, close enough to trail quivering fingertips through his hair. There's so much to say.

"Please," is all she can manage, cold hands dangling in his warm breath. Was it this hard, when they were kids? She can't remember. It was so long ago, millions and millions of years, when the world was love and hate, black and white (never gray, never this gray she's drowning in).

"I feel so much," is her confession, her soul splattering amidst all the scattered light.

He doesn't understand a word.

"I have to go," he finally says, and it's too much, it's far too much. She's stumbling down the stairs, she's hurling the cigarette to the ground, she's clenching her fists, she's screaming "Damnit, Arnold," and shoving him, really horribly shoving him against the wall as though he's a ragdoll - fuck this, she'll take what she wants - pressing herself against his body, nails digging into his chest, reveling in her desire, _she must have him, she must,_ demanding he love her back, suddenly nine, suddenly bullying, suddenly smitten with the little football-headed boy who smiles at her and saves her from the rain and I love you, I love you, I _love_ you -

She wishes he would be frightened, flustered, _anything,_ but he just stays still, tries not to breathe too hard. With a sad smile, he finally leans in, kisses her fleetingly, like such a thing could ever be enough to satisfy her. "Helga," he whispers against her mouth, so frustratingly soft, so horribly calm even as she forces herself upon him. "Helga, stop. Please stop."

She nearly cries, then, nearly crumples as easily as a winter leaf - but she doesn't. Her hands, filled with his shirt, fall limp, and he's gone, out the door, down the street, away. She still feels the warmth (his eyes, burning, _burning_) but he's gone and it's all fading so easily.

It only takes a single heartbeat, a single thought _(he could have been mine) _and she is straight again; smoothing out the wrinkles in her tired dress, gathering her fallen cigarette and crushing it between blistered fingers, throwing open the curtains and letting the sun flood in, like a comforting touch.

It's not over, it's never really over, despite all his no more's, never again's. She'll go to buy a newspaper or dwindle by the shop windows, or maybe even just go looking, looking and looking, and soon, she'll see him. Maybe alone, maybe with _her,_ and he'll smile and she'll look away, like always. He'll come to her, so confused, so welcoming, so beautiful and the world will seem achingly perfect.

Maybe next time, he'll love her.

In the meantime, she thinks, stumbling upstairs to rest a bit longer, to clean the sheets, to call her husband and tell him everything's fine - she could use a smoke.


End file.
